About GEN in Romania

The Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN) has been active in Romania since 2008, when Junior Achievement Romania and GEA Strategy & Consulting jointly launched the country's first Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) campaign. The inaugural effort mobilized 520 activities across 200 partners and reached approximately 12,000 participants — an impressive opening that signaled strong demand for entrepreneurship programming in Romania. As Lucian Gramescu of JA Romania reflected in 2011, "Back in 2008, when we launched the first edition of Global Entrepreneurship Week, entrepreneurship was not the popular topic it is today… Today, students and teachers, companies, politicians, business people and the media are talking a lot about entrepreneurship in Romania, how important it is and what should be done to foster it." 

The GEW Romania campaign grew rapidly in its early years. By 2010, the campaign had expanded to 1,300 activities with 26 partners and more than 51,000 participants. In 2011, it reached an even larger audience — 43,600 participants across 1,400 activities supported by 691 partner organizations, making it one of the most active GEW campaigns in Central and Eastern Europe. Junior Achievement Romania has served as the consistent anchor of GEW throughout the country's history, co-hosting with GEA Strategy & Consulting in earlier years and continuing to lead the campaign through to the present day with the support of other partners in the country. In 2025, Impact Hub Bucharest assumed the role of GEW host, marking a new chapter in the evolution of a campaign that expanded from one targeted at youth to one open to all parts of the country. 

Romania's engagement with GEN extends into policy and government affairs. Adrian Curaj, General Director of the Funding Agency for Research and Innovation and former Minister of Education, Research and Innovation, has been active in the Startup Nations Ministerial, demonstrating high-level Romanian government interest in the policy dialogue that GEN facilitates among entrepreneurship-focused policymakers worldwide. Separately, Serban Mogos of Akcees / Startmeup Romania served as an early Startup Nations member, representing Romania's private sector in GEN's global community of startup policymakers and program leaders focused on regulatory changes and policy levers to accelerate new firm formation. 

One notable GEW highlight from Romania came in 2022, when Junior Achievement Romania launched the BizzFactory incubator for high school and college students in collaboration with FedEx, Accenture, EY, Citi, HP, and others. The incubator provides young entrepreneurs with free access to webinars and hybrid learning resources, embedding entrepreneurship education directly into the student experience and reflecting the youth-focused mission that JA Romania has championed throughout its tenure as GEW host. 

Romania has also been home to several GEN-affiliated competition events. The Get in the Ring startup pitch competition has held national rounds in Romania, giving local startups the opportunity to compete on an international stage. Romania's connection to GEN's broader startup support ecosystem also includes membership in the GEN Starters Club — Eugenia Ana Bucur, R+D Manager at INNOVATI FOODS, joined the GEN Starters Club in 2024, leveraging access to a global peer community of promising founders, mentorship, and curated networking opportunities. 

Romania's early-stage investment community is also connected to GEN through Business Angels Romania, which has served as a national lead in the Global Business Angels Network (GBAN) since 2016. Led by Lulian Basu, Business Angels Romania participates in GBAN's efforts to strengthen angel investing capacity, facilitate cross-border investment, and amplify the investor voice in policy discussions — contributing to a more robust funding environment for Romanian entrepreneurs. 

GEN has travelled to Romania for US State Department-sponsored entrepreneurship activities and maintains extensive relationships with key Romanian ecosystem stakeholders, including Junior Achievement Romania, Impact Hub Bucharest, Business Angels Romania, GEA Strategy & Consulting, ROStartup, Rubrik Hub, as well as technology community events like Techsylvania — a GEN general member since 2016 — that connect Romanian founders to the broader European tech scene. 

GEN continues to engage with Romania's evolving ecosystem as the country builds on nearly two decades of GEW activity and deepens its integration into GEN's global programs for founders, investors, and policymakers.